Fishing with the Merrill Girls

Fishing is pretty awesome. We can all agree on that. Wading in a mountain stream, the sounds of birds singing, the gurgle of the stream, the wind through the leaves. It's all pretty awesome. But there is one way to make fishing even better. Add beautiful girls!

Sarah and Jessica sporting dollar-store hats and stoked expressions

So here we are, bringing you a Fishing with the Merrill Girls post!

Our dad's birthday is this week, and as a present to himself, he paid for Sarah and I to have a guided fishing tour in the wonderful land of HOKKAIDO, JAPAN. The guide was a crazy, chain-smoking Japanese man. He only spoke Japanese and he was pretty awesome.

Our guide, Yamaguchi-san

We met him outside our hotel at 7:30am Monday morning, and he drove us to our first fishing spot- a small stream in the mountains. While we drove, he and conversed about random topics. I think my favorite was when he told me to drive carefully because the police were really cracking down. I glanced over at the speedometer to see he was going 90 km and a 50 km road. Okay Yamaguchi-san, I'll keep that in mind.

Waders are a must for every fashion-conscious lady.

We got to the river and suited up, walking through bushes and ferns on the way.

 We made a friend along the way. Sarah's only about 3-4 feet behind him, so you can tell he was a pretty big spider.

We enter the stream and Yamaguchi-san starts us fishing and giving us tips as we go. 

Sarah caught the first fish (I actually don't know what kind it is. But they were very pretty). She then continued to catch 2-3x as many fish as I did!

Merrill Girl tradition

a picture of the stream

Aha! Finally I catch my own!

Hyrdation is extremely important, especially in hot and humid Hokkaido weather.

I catch a tiny "chibi-chan" I have eaten whole fish bigger than him at Japanese-style breakfasts (guts, bones, and all!!)

Sarah and I caught a fish at the same time, and RIGHT as I was pulling mine up for the picture, he twisted off the hook! I swear! and he was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big!!

 After about two hours in that stream, we ate lunch and headed off to catch some rainbows! We drove down the mountain and into a bigger stream. The sun had come out and it was pretty hot. Sarah and I mastered our long casting and we tried to tempt out some rainbows. And we waited. And waited. Annnnd waited. After about 40 minutes with not even a nibble, Yamaguchi-san decided it was time to return to the mountains where the water was cooler. So we hoped back into the car and drove off again. 

We had much more luck at this stream, though Hokkaido Rainbows are a lot trickier than the first fish we caught. After several misses and a change of flies, we caught some!

Sarah caught a monster rainbow!

My big rainbow. He was super fat too. Also I make weird faces.

We finally got back to our hotel at 6:30, exhausted, sweaty, and stinky! But our 11-hour fishing day was extremely successful! Sarah caught about 60 fish, while I probably caught between 30 and 40. Overall quite grand!

So thanks dad! Happy Birthday!!